


A mess of something beautiful

by Trojie



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Double Penetration, M/M, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-21
Updated: 2011-05-21
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:04:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwaine appreciates his position as one of Arthur's personal guards. He also appreciates the fact that Lancelot is the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A mess of something beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ninja_orange's [A Knight's Tale](http://ninja-orange.livejournal.com/120354.html) commentfest for the prompt 'double penetration'. Biiiig thanks to enablers treacle_tartlet, hermette and anatsuno for cheerleading on Twitter <3

Arthur's got better at a few things, since he was crowned. The main one is using delegation to mean Merlin can't accompany him on dangerous quests. It's very sweet, Gwaine thinks, and he agrees with Arthur's reasoning wholeheartedly - if Arthur himself is going to leave the castle, he needs to leave behind people who can protect it. So he leaves Leon to actually command, Percival and Elyan to back him up, and Merlin, because Merlin is quite good at talking to the people, needs to be kept firmly out of the kind of things that Arthur leaves the castle for (border treaty negotiations, mostly, which Merlin has a talent for misunderstanding and tripping over), and is always easily swayed by a pair of big blue eyes and a stirring pep-talk about the necessity of protecting the common folk.

One of these days, Merlin is going to catch on, but he hasn't yet.

Arthur always takes Gwaine and Lancelot with him when he's going to the borders to parley. They're the most used to privations, of all the knights - Lancelot with his ridiculous self-imposed noble quests, and Gwaine, who ... used to get kicked out of taverns a lot. They've both had more experience with the sword than Elyan or Percival, and more experience thinking for themselves or fighting only in a small group than Camelot-trained Leon. And together with Arthur, Gwaine sometimes thinks there is nothing in Albion to stop them or best them, when they have their blades in their hands.

Gwaine likes their little trips. He likes the edge of uncertain danger, he likes the smoke-tasting rabbit they eat and he likes the quiet companionship around the fire. He even, if he's being honest, likes the feeling that there is something here he's fighting for, something good and real in Arthur's signature on a document, and Lancelot's straight-backed pride.

They share a tent, in order to keep the weight down for the horses, and also because it gets cold in the woods and there's no sense in spreading out and wasting their body heat. Gwaine, licking a stripe down Lancelot's spine, agrees entirely with this reasoning.

With three of them tangled up in this agreement, there are so many ways to approach the question of who and what and where and how, but Lancelot's gorgeous, delicate, hand-built nobility is irresistable as a target. Arthur cannot resist something to aim at. Gwaine cannot resist an opportunity to make a mess of something beautiful.

Arthur has Lancelot settled over him, between his thighs on their shared bed of linens and furs, and Gwaine is tempted to just lounge beside them, reach his hands in to soothe and pet and settle and work anywhere they cannot reach or aren't expecting, but Lancelot is so pliant like this. So tempting. Arthur's eyes are open as they kiss where Lancelot's have drifted shut, and the look the king is giving Gwaine tells him that there is a plan of attack.

They have talked about this, vaguely, all three of them. Gwaine knows what Arthur wants him to try, knows that Lancelot will let them, will take it, will _want_ it, the generous soul that he is. So Gwaine slowly moves around them, keeping one finger in careful contact with Lancelot's skin like he would if he were walking behind a horse so as not to startle it, and as he reaches his goal he lets that finger drag across the cleft of Lancelot's arse, soft and dry.

Lancelot shudders like the rising tide, and Arthur's hand drifts up in Gwaine's view to rub over Lancelot's hipbone soothingly. Keeping him relaxed is of paramount importance, and Arthur knows that. Gwaine introduces more fingers, spanning Lancelot's skin, fluttering and stroking and avoiding, for now, the welcoming place that he needs to prepare.

Their bottle of oil is half-empty, but there will be enough. Gwaine is sparing with it to start, just coating his hands slick as he would if he were giving a massage, and that's what he does - works the kinks out of Lancelot's lower back, the tops of his thighs, kneading his buttocks until he wrenches his mouth away from Arthur's, digs his forehead into Arthur's shoulder and pleads, 'For pity's sake, Gwaine, just _get on with it_ ,' which is what both Arthur and Gwaine have been waiting for.

Gwaine's first finger goes only as deep as the first knuckle, at least partially because he knows how restraint in matters like this affects Lancelot. He draws it in and out but mostly around, to spread and oil and make ready for _this_ \- Arthur's long, square hand gliding down the small of Lancelot's back as he shuffles them back until he, Arthur, is in a loose approximation of a sitting position against bunched bedclothes, with Lancelot on his lax, spread knees over Arthur's lap. It isn't much, but it gives Arthur enough reach, enough play, to get one hand down to join Gwaine.

A little tip of the oil bottle, and one of Arthur's fingers can join Gwaine's. Timing is everything in all the tasks Arthur requires of his knights, and this is no exception - eyes locked, breathing together, they line up and push in together on an outgoing breath, and between them Lancelot's body curls like a bowstring and he moans.

The third finger is Gwaine's - his two fingers bundled with Arthur's one and flexing like they were made to work together like this. The inside of Lancelot is as beautiful, as sleek-strong as the outside of him or the heart of him, that he wears so unselfconsciously on his sleeve. They work him steadily, rather than slowly, and before long he has himself braced on his forearms, his head bowed over Arthur's body, and is pushing back against them.

Arthur wants to add another finger. Another tilt of the oil-bottle over their joined hands, and the noises Lancelot makes are obscene in their purity, shorn of language and pared down to meaning alone. It is time to try this thing they have never done before. Gwaine draws his fingers and Arthur's from Lancelot after a time, placing Arthur's on Lancelot's hip, ready to be called back into the fray at a moment's notice, and uses his own to slick his cock.

The sensation is hard to endure. It would be so good to pull Lancelot down just a little, to get him to breathe and nuzzle and mouth at the place where Arthur's thigh meets his body, to take Arthur between his lips and over his tongue, and then for Gwaine to listen to the way they sound, and stroke himself, and paint his release over Lancelot's backside, watch it drip, watch Arthur come apart in Lancelot's mouth, watch Lancelot break and spill over the sheets and Arthur's legs, kiss them both, clean up the mess they've all made with cloths and water but also with mouths and tongues to taste it …

But no. He slides his hand over himself, to make himself ready for Lancelot and for Arthur and for this thing they are about to do, and then he moves in closer. He braces himself, one hand over Arthur's wetted fingers and the other on the ground, and asks Lancelot, 'Ready?'

He refuses to let himself move, even though the head of his cock is so close to Lancelot's arse that he can feel the heat, until Lancelot whispers, 'Yes.'

The way in is easy, as it should be after the spread of fingers to make it so, and Gwaine has to steel himself against that feeling with a firm hand on his balls, to give just a little sharpness, just a little control.

He's in. He's seated, and he never wants to leave. Lancelot is shuddering under him, and Arthur is murmuring something to keep him, presumably, from too much movement. Gwaine can feel Arthur's hand under his on Lancelot's hip, straining to move, and once he feels he has himself under control, Gwaine lets go of it.

The first of Arthur's fingers pulls just a little bit at the elasticity of Lancelot's body, and then slides, a tiny increment, then another, then another, easing and pushing its way in. Gwaine has to bite his lip _hard_ , at the feeling. The oil is easing the way, but it's no longer as wet as it was.

The second extra finger has Lancelot make a high, broken noise, and the third makes him _shove_ himself back onto Gwaine's body like a stag in rut. Gwaine can see Arthur's face, and it is so close to gone that he knows it is time. Balancing himself carefully on bended knees and wrapping one arm around Lancelot's waist, he gives Arthur a few seconds to withdraw and then pulls Lancelot back onto his lap.

That almost does it, almost does him in - Lancelot's weight throwing them so deep into this coupling - but then Arthur is upon them, wild-eyed and commanding, and one, two, three fingers are back, _sopping_ with oil now that Arthur has control of the supply - he never understood the point of conserving something - and Lancelot whines, gravelly in his throat.

Gwaine can sympathise.

'Is this - will this work?' Arthur asks as he kneels up, putting his hands on Lancelot's hips to steady them all.

'We will fit,' Lancelot says. 'We already do,' and his certainty is shocking in its strength.

Gwaine feels the pressure of Arthur's cock against the base of his own as he starts to pull out a little, and Arthur's fingers are back to hold open, make space, as he grits his teeth and starts to move in.

Gwaine cannot take it any longer, with Lancelot panting and wet between them and Arthur's mouth so close, so bitten and red and needing - he pulls the king in for a kiss, if you could dignify it with such a name. They breathe each other's air as they work their way into Lancelot's body, and their hands find each other and tangle, slick with oil, to slide strange arcane patterns over Lancelot's skin.

Much as Gwaine wishes he could make this last, it is all too much at once to allow them to teeter on the edge of completion the way he likes to. One night, he will spread Arthur out over the tent floor and he and Lancelot will bite him until he comes from that alone, and one night he will encourage Lancelot to take Arthur to the very depth and breadth of his ability, and he, Gwaine, will just watch, but that is not tonight - tonight he and Arthur are pressed together closer than battle-formation, and that in and of itself would be overwhelming, but holding them together is Lancelot, who has made an oath of his body to bind them like this.

It's Lancelot who falls over the edge first - with their hands around him and Gwaine murmuring words through his hair and Arthur mouthing the sweaty line of his jaw - and Arthur's reaction to the sudden shock of Lancelot's seed across his skin is to suck in air, to crush his arms around both Lancelot and Gwaine and give himself up to them with one final thrust, a glorious surrender.

After that, and quaking in the shuddering movements that follow, Gwaine's release is almost lost. He's already gone, after all, gone somewhere in the poetry of physicality.

Their bed is hot, damp, unspeakable in its odour and condition and meaning, and they fall asleep in it one by one, satisfied.


End file.
